Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 277 and 278

Happy Easter Sunday everyone! Whatever you have planned for today, I hope you have a lovely time. I'm just hoping we have some sunshine - last week was glorious, for a few days!

As always, a huge thank you to everyone who came to play this past fortnight - loads of gorgeous entries.

This is my snippets card for this next fortnight:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, opening on the short side for a change

- snippet of pale rose pink card, trimmed to just slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- piece of white card stock for the front panel, trimmed to just slightly smaller than the pink layer

- found a little snippet of true rose pink card, backed it with Stick-It adhesive sheet and die cut it using a Crealies rings die - the die has no name but is reference number 'CLDR11'. Elizabeth sent me this die a while ago - with a challenge to see how I could use it, I can see it being a really useful embellishment die for all sorts of cards including Christmas! 

- then I used the Misti to arrange the stamps I wanted to use - with the ring die cut in place but not stuck down. Removed the ring die cut for now and stamped my selection using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- the butterflies are by Kaisercraft from their 'Butterflies' set and they're a smidgen thicker than the sentiment stamp I used so, as they had stamped well, before repeating the sentiment stamping I removed the butterfly stamps from the Misti

- the sentiment (from an Inkylicious set called 'Friend') had slightly stamped onto the card anyhow. Held in place as it was by the Misti it was just a quick re-ink, re-stamp and it was done!  

- then I coloured the butterflies using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils in just two muted shades of green and blended very slightly using a Derwent dry blender pencil

- punched each corner of the image panel using a fancy corner punch by Woodware

- glued the image panel to the card front, on top of the pink layer

- added the set of die cut rings to the panel - finished!

So I learned something new about the Misti when making this card. It's fine to position all the stamps you want to use at one time, even if some are thinner than others. You just peel away the thicker ones as they stamp and then the next thinner ones will make proper contact with the card - and so on I guess.

I also used an L-shape from the new Misti 'Creative Corners' set for the first time - yay! It allows you to push a piece of card away from the edge of the Misti (I knew my stamps were close to the edges and that can sometimes cause issues with getting enough pressure), yet you still keep perfect positioning.

Need to play a lot more to try out all the additional things the Creative Corners set can be used for - repeat stamping and diagonal placement of sentiments for one! Jennifer McGuire has some great tips and there are lots of others to be found on line as well. The one thing I would say is that it's best suited to the standard sized Misti rather than the mini Misti (the L shape piece is too big for a mini Misti I understand) although some pieces will fit. And, at £16 or so, which isn't much more than the cost of some polymer stamp sets, I think it's a good investment!

I was really pleased how this card came together in the end as I picked the items I wanted to use and only then worked out the design - rather than the other way round. I was driven by the fact that there were three items that had been in the toy box for quite a while and two of those had been kindly donated. I hate to take forever offering donations as prizes (my record was goodies from our lovely Darnell, and still feel bad that it took me so long for 'the muse' to be right). In fact, right now there's just one donated item left (really cute as well). I have plans for it ASAP Val!

But never fear, the toy box is looking healthy with quite an assortment of goodies that I've bought lately. Watch this space!

Probably don't need to spell out what this fortnight's prize is made up of:

I will split the prize three ways if necessary, the Kaisercraft 'Butterflies' stamp set kindly donated by Megan, the Crealies 'rings' die, kindly donated by Elizabeth ....... and the Inkylicious 'Friend' sentiment stamp set from me. But, as always - all items are one complete prize if you wish to play for all of them together.

In truth, it isn't often I end up splitting a prize but that's absolutely the luck of the draw - not me saving on postage!

The Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks from now on and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 29th April. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's still a maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. The prize is all items together as a single prize, unless you really do only want to try for a 'split' as I explained above - in which case I'd do a further draw for the other item(s). Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you're wanting to be in the draw then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' just in case you're playing only for fun. Thanks!

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the winner of last fortnight's prize plus my picks from the past two weeks - as well as a lovely guest designer too!

Love from Parsnip (busily gobbling Easter eggs - little does he know it's the bath for him later, due to choklit on his chops!) and also love from me,